Businesses with Fewer Than 50 Employees Worry Most About Healthcare, Study Finds

Businesses with between 10 and 49 employees are the most likely to be concerned by rising healthcare costs, according to a recent study from Principal Financial Group (NYSE:PFG).

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2017 Principal Financial Well-Being Index

The Principal Financial Well-Being Index is an online survey of more than 600 business owners with between 10 and 500 employees. The report dives into a number of different issues, from healthcare costs to general business growth and even work-life balance issues.

However, in the current business climate, healthcare is definitely a prominent issue. In fact, more business owners ranked healthcare costs as their largest concern in 2017 than they have in past years. This growing concern, according to some experts at Principal Financial Group, is due to the actual costs growing along with uncertainty about the healthcare market as a whole. These concerns can be especially pronounced for businesses with small teams without staff members wholly dedicated to benefits and other HR issues.

Amy C. Friedrich, President of U.S. Insurance Solutions for Principal Financial Group said in an email to Small Business Trends, “Small businesses are concerned about healthcare costs since it’s often the largest benefit expense they have. Many of these growing businesses don’t have HR teams to handle their benefits needs, and fighting for top talent is a constant challenge. We’ll see in the coming months and years if these concerns level out or escalate, and if healthcare uncertainty impacts how they feel about the economy as a whole.”

Despite those concerns, the report did find small business optimism as a whole is up. In fact, 92 percent of business owner feel that their company’s financial health is either growing or stable. So despite concerns about healthcare costs and similar factors, businesses are feeling pretty good about their finances and the economy as a whole.

You can view other highlights and the full report from Principal Financial group here.

Annie Pilon is a Senior Staff Writer for Small Business Trends, covering entrepreneur profiles, interviews, feature stories, community news and in-depth, expert-based guides. When she’s not writing she can be found on her personal blog Wattlebird, and exploring all that her home state of Michigan has to offer.

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